On the trail of John Muir: Hiking in the naturalist's footsteps around Northern California

By Amy Graff

on April 21, 2017 4:00 AM

Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

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Mount Diablo, East Bay: Summit Trail

John Muir spent the night on Mt. Diablo back in 1877 when a 16-room hotel known as the Mountain House near the peak welcomed guests. The hotel closed in 1895, but you can visit the site marked with a plaque by hiking the Summit Trail that follows the old stage coach road to a bowl-shaped area within the mountain circled by cliffs blanketed in grass and dense forest.

Muir chronicled his Diablo visit in a letter that was published in "The Life and Letters of John Muir in Two Volumes." He wrote: "The sunrise was truly glorious. After lingering an hour or so, observing and feasting and making a few notes, I went down to that half-way hotel for breakfast. I was the only guest, while the family numbered four, well attired and intellectual looking persons, who for a time kept up a solemn, Quakerish silence which I tried in vain to break up." Find more background on the Mount Diablo Interpretive Assoc. website.

Explore the grassy hills studded with oaks where John Muir walked with his two daughters, Wanda and Helen. This open space is adjacent to John Muir's original homestead and part of what's now the John Muir National Historical Site. Access a loop trail by traveling 1/4 mile south from the Alhambra Avenue visitor center to the trailhead parking lot next to Franklin Canyon Road.

At age 40, John Muir settled in California permanently when he married the daughter of a physician and horticulturist Louisa Strentzel. The couple lived in Martinez, where they raised two daughters and tended to their ranch and orchard. Today, you can visit the homestead at this historic site, and take a self-guided cell phone tour of the park grounds along a series of walking paths with numbered wooden posts with a phone number to dial as well as sequential stop numbers. For more information visit the national park website.

John Muir's ranch (now part of the John Muir National Historic Site) was within walking distance of this shorefront park and he "would have definitely spent time walking around here," said Tom Leatherman, superintendent of four East Bay national parks. Tucked away in northwestern Contra Costa County on the Carquinez Strait, this peaceful spot offers three miles of flat trails through marsh along the shoreline. The Pickleweed Trail takes you along the water. Find a trail map and more information at the East Bay Regional Parks website.

"John Muir also visited the summit of Mount Tam via the Crookedest Railroad," said Mia Monroe, a National Park Service ranger who specializes in John Muir history. The line was known for its steep and winding route, snaking through a stunning landscape. The railroad no longer exists but you can hike to the top of Mount Tamalpais via the Old Railroad Grade Trail and at the summit circle around the Verna Dunshee Trail for jaw-dropping vistas of the Bay Area. Find more information and trail maps.

Upon learning that William and Elizabeth Kent wished to call their gift to the people of the U.S. of an old-growth redwood forest in Marin "Muir Woods," he wrote eloquently about the place being the "best tree-lover's monument that can be found in all the forests of the world" and among all the natural wonders named after him, this was the greatest honor. "Muir soon visited and made several other visits with friends," said Mia Monroe, a National Park Service ranger who specializes in John Muir history.

Wander the park's six-mile network of trails, looking up in awe at the majestic redwoods as Muir might have.

"On John Muir's birthday (April 21) or sometime near Earth Week, we suggest you visit in the 'Muir way' using public transit and walking," suggests Mia Monroe, a National Park Service ranger who specializes in John Muir history. "A special way to do this is to take the West Marin Stage (Marin Transit #61 bus line) to the Mountain Home stop on Panoramic Highway, walk down the Camp Eastwood Road and enter the redwoods...this is the back way in so you'll have the added bonus of finding a less crowded area of the park to enjoy the peace & quiet, spring lushness and hear the sound of water, birds. After a walk in the woods you can either return the same way you came in or go back up another trail as the Stage stops at each trailhead along Panoramic Highway (see www.nps.gov/muwo for tips). Allow 3-plus hours."

John Muir ascended this Northern California peak at least a dozen times and his most famous was done during a snow storm in 1875. To experience the natural beauty that entranced Muir, you don't have to take on such a challenging trek. At the Bunny Flat Trailhead, the mountain looms above, and you can start to trek up the mountain on the Horse Camp Trail that takes you to the Shasta Alpine Lodge at Horse Camp, where Muir started many of his ascents.

Of his legendary 1875 ascent, Muir wrote in an 1877 Harper's New Monthly Magazine article: "The slight weariness of the ascent was soon rested away. The sky was of the thinnest, purest azure; spiritual life filled every pore of rock and cloud; and we reveled in the marvelous abundance and beauty of the landscapes by which we were encircled."

Muir traveled to Lake Tahoe several times, and after his first visit in 1873, he wrote in a letter to his friend Jeanne Carr that he had "sauntered through the piney woods, pausing countless times to absorb the blue glimpses of the lake, all so heavenly clean, so terrestrial yet so openly spiritual."

It's unknown where Muir hiked exactly around Tahoe, but he probably hit portions of what's now the 150-mile Rim Trail, circling the entire lake. The section that takes you up to Spooner Summit offers some of the best lake views.

John Muir hopped off a steamer in San Francisco on March 27, 1868, and immediately started walking to Yosemite by way of Pacheco Pass. Looking eastward from the summit of the pass, he wrote in The Yosemite that he saw the Central Valley at his feet, "level and flowery, like a lake of pure sunshine, forty or fifty miles wide, five hundred miles long, one rich furred garden of yellow Compositae. And from the eastern boundary of this vast golden flower-bed rose the mighty Sierra, miles in height, and so gloriously colored and so radiant, it seemed not clothed with light but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city."

The Spike's Peak Trail will take you to the highest point in the park and you can look east as Muir did. He followed the old Butterfield Stage line route, and you can still find remains of it around the park.

When Santa Cruz residents Peter and Donna Thomas set out in 2006 to retrace Muir's 300-mile walk from S.F. to Yosemite, they found that many of the places where Muir would have walked are now highways and roads. When the couple realized following his exact route was impossible, they instead focused on going the way Muir would do the walk if he were still alive. That is, they walked through the most beautiful spots. Passing through Fremont, the Thomases found Coyote Hills. "It's a Really awesome spot right in the middle of an urban area," Peter said. "That’s a really beautiful place to go hiking. You just wander."

When you visit, try the Bayview Trail that runs along the water. Find more information.

John Muir built a small cabin attached to a sawmill on Yosemite Creek just below lower Yosemite Fall in Yosemite Valley in 1869 and lived in it for two years. The cabin was destroyed and 1924 a plaque was mounted on a rock at the site. To see the spot where Muir lived, hike the one-mile Lower Yosemite Falls loop that takes you to a section of North America's tallest waterfall, its final 320-foot drop. Find more information on the trail on the national park website.

After walking to Yosemite, John Muir quickly fell in love with the area and decided to stay. Working as a shepherd, he was put in charge of moving a flock of sheep to the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolomne Rivers. He wrote in his journal that he and his party reached a cascading part of the Merced River on June 14, 1868, and it's thought he was probably referring to this pretty waterfall near Coulterville in the Sierra Nevada foothills. It's thought Muir was probably at "Diana Falls near Bower's Cave in the Greely Hills area," according to the Ceres Courier.

"How soothingly, restfully cool it is beneath that leafy, translucent ceiling, and how delightful the water music--the deep bass tones of the fall, the clashing, ringing spray, and infinite variety of small low tones of the current gliding past the side of the boulder-island, and glinting against a thousand smaller stones down the ferny channel!" Muir wrote about spot where his crew camped next to the falls in his June 14 journal published in My First Summer in the Sierra.

Today, you can visit the falls and swim in its pool by hiking 1.5 miles out and back. For more photos and information go to Swimming Holes of California.

Of his trip to Mono Lake in 1875, Muir wrote that he came upon a landscape of "loose ashes," "hot sand," "well-formed craters," and a lake "against so grand a mountain background" and with" an island, black, pink and gray." He added, "Nowhere within the bounds of our wonder-filled land are the antagonistic forces of fire and ice brought more closely and contrastingly together." To experience this otherworldly beauty at Mono Lake, try the popular South Tufa Loop Trail at the Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve.